Pricing cult wine to the times

I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about wine prices lately, particularly about the reality check that many expensive wines need these days.

So it was heartening to get an e-mail several days ago from Abe Schoener, whose Scholium Project we tagged as one of California’s emergent cult wines last year. After ample attention with several mystique-building articles in The Chronicle and elsewhere, Schoener certainly had the option to hike prices.

Instead, he lowered them on three wines: his mainstay 2008 Naucratis, a Verdelho from vineyards in the Delta, down about $4 to $20; his 2007 Dulcissima Camilla, a sort of second wine to his Sauvignon Blanc-based La Severita Bruto, which is $28; and the 2008 Riquewihr, a Gewurztraminer from the same vineyard as the Naucratis, Lost Slough, which is $20 (for a 500ml bottle).

These aren’t dramatic drops, and there’s never much Scholium wine around, but at a time when he didn’t have to (Scholium’s cash flow has been thin even in good times), Schoener took a savvy path that others might want to give a good look at. As he wrote to customers: “During this difficult time, I want to make sure that people keep drinking — and trying — my wines, even if the margins don’t look very good.” It’s very much in keeping with the crazy-like-a-fox thinking that has largely defined Scholium.

Y mucho mas:

Several folks got in touch after my recap of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti post earlier this week asking about prices. Pricing for DRC is a tricky thing, since retailers vary in their markups for what is one of the world’s most allocated wines. For that reason, its U.S. importer, Wilson Daniels, hesitates to release prices that may end up not reflecting reality for the buyer. As this is their 30th anniversary of representing DRC, they’ve had enough experience to know the perils of pegging a wine price.

But they did provide a range of prices for the 2006 wines, which are estimates but should give a sense of what will be out there. These have never been wines that most of us will buy (and the price for the Vosne-Romanee is academic, as it’s almost entirely sold to restaurants) but for those curious, here goes: